Certain types of business suffer from “internal pilferage.” That is to say, there is a high incidence of theft, by employees, of the goods or products stored or handled by the business. This is an especially serious problem in businesses where there is a significant amount of traffic through the building entrances and exits and where it is difficult if not impossible to monitor the activities of all employees.
Alarm systems for doors and other access ways in restaurants, warehouses, and the like, generally fall into two categories. The first category includes those alarms designed to protect from unauthorized entry to the premises. Such alarms may be activated by opening the door or window, by breaking a beam of light, by sensing motion, etc.
Alarms of the second category are designed to protect from unauthorized removal of merchandise from the premises. These types of alarms may be similar to those mentioned above. Additionally, this second category includes alarm systems wherein a magnetic or other device is attached to the merchandise and a sensor placed at each exit of the building. When an item is carried past the sensor, an alarm is activated. Authorized removal of the merchandise from the premises is facilitated by deactivation or removal of the magnetic or other device from the merchandise. Only authorized persons are given devices for deactivating or removing the magnetic or other devices from the merchandise. However, in restaurants and other similar businesses, goods or merchandise cannot always be efficiently or economically tagged with magnetic or other sensors, particularly when there is a high turnover of the goods or merchandise.
Current internal pilferage systems provide an alarm system on a service door which allows employees to deactivate the alarm via a key for a short period of time in order to exit through the door or prop the door open to take waste out or accept delivered goods into the premises. If the door is opened without the alarm being temporarily deactivated, or if the door is not closed or the key re-toggled to reset the time period—before the time period expires, an internal alarm sounds, which can only be deactivated by management personnel with a master key. However, current systems still allow for an employee to pilfer goods by anonymously deactivating the alarm system, potentially for several consecutive time periods by continually toggling the deactivation key, while goods are removed from the premises, without alerting management personnel. Improvements over conventional security and alarm systems are needed.
Improved service entrance and security systems are needed to address the shortcomings of conventional systems.